


St Maryam's Home for the Lost

by Katreal



Series: St Maryam's Home for the Lost (and Found) [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Background Relationships, Beta Dirk Strider's Ghost, Earth C (Homestuck), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Reincarnation, background davekat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:35:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24562465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katreal/pseuds/Katreal
Summary: St. Maryam's has a policy of naming foundlings without their own names after the Creators they most resemble.This results in a 29 year old Dave Strider meeting a ghost.Sixteen years ago he lost his brother.Thirteen years ago he lost the chance to get to know him again.Is the third time the charm? Or will it all crash and burn?
Relationships: Dave Strider & Dirk Strider
Series: St Maryam's Home for the Lost (and Found) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775377
Comments: 26
Kudos: 151





	St Maryam's Home for the Lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coolbrewed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolbrewed/gifts).



> This work is inspired by coolbrewed's reincarnation AU [ [See the concept post here!]](https://coolbrewed.tumblr.com/post/620102378827448320/tumblr-can-have-another-au-concept-sketch-as-a)
> 
> Things to know: AU from Collide. Dirk wasn't able to be revived. When the kids joined the world they decided to keep their heads down and pick up the pieces instead of being the second coming of the pantheon.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

You came to St. Maryam’s after almost a year of consideration, thirteen fucking years after the end of the game. You’ve been a god. You created a literal civilization. You’ve lived a (relatively) normal life picking up the pieces in the years since then. And Maybe, just maybe, you think you might be ready to consider making a decision to care for someone who needs it. Take a new step with Karkat. You see how much he _cares_ every time you visit Kanaya and Rose at the brooding caverns.

You‘d joked about it with your friends, likening your hypothetical future foundling to picking up a lost puppy and bringing it home and springing it on Karkat with the most boisterous surprise ever. Jane would give you an earful as you and John swapped the most ridiculous names imaginable, laughing over the poor hypothetical kid to get saddled with your ass, and then you’d argue back about the fact that Sweet Kitty Obama Strider-Vantas is steeped in historical significance and it’d be an honor for any kid to carry the moniker.

Then Roxy would poke her head out of the kitchen, after Jane left to rant at her, and pop a bubble in your face about how “u kno most kids already have names u dont just get to rename them because you want to.”

You know that.

Rose would just ‘hmmm’ and smile a knowing smile because she knows you’re just bullshitting.

You and Karkat talked. A lot. He’s got a thing about abandoned kids for gog knows what reason (you know what reason) and you’re terrified.

Terrified about what, you, this time the hypothetical reader, ask? 

Terrified of screwing up some poor kid who didn’t need to deal with either of your neurotic asses.

It’s not like either of you had particularly great childhoods, and even if you’ve slowly, carefully, spent the last thirteen years working through some of your own landmines and untangling, exactly, how to _not_ raise a child. But in a way that fear makes you _want_ it the more you think about it. You _want_ to make life better for some kid out there. Some kid who didn’t deserve to end up where they are.

You talked with Karkat. You _both_ talked with Kanaya, who is on her 3rd brood by now because she mothers the fuck out of every batch that comes out of the brooding caverns, much to Rose’s amusement. And now…

And now here you are, at St Maryam’s Group Home for the Lost, in New Houston, a year after you looked at yourself and went, “you know, I think I can do this”, with Karkat’s clawed hand in yours. No, you are not strangling it. No he is not rolling his eyes at you. Or complaining loudly about how much of a pansy you are. They are _kids._ Most aren’t even three sweeps old yet. They aren’t going to fucking _bite you._ You’re not even sure you’re quite ready to bring one home yet. You just want to put your feelers out there. Have an interview or two. Mingle with the chilluns to see if you’re ready to do this whole parental luscii thing.You’re a fucking _god_ Dave Strider. You can do this. They’re just kids. Human kids. Some troll kids. Even some tiny carapace. Maybe you’ll look at one of the latter. 

You kinda miss the Mayor.

Would that be fair to a kid though? To be constantly in the shadow of your past?

The administration barely gives you a second glance, despite your name and coloring being a dead ringer for the most commonly surviving records of the God of Time. Normally you at least get a chuckle out of it and a comment on religious parents. You soon find out why, the kids just hear you introduce yourself as Dave and go, “Oh! You have a god name too!”

You’ve already rolled your eyes at how common the Creator’s names are amongst the general populace. You get it. John the Fucking Baptist and Adam and Michael, all those common as fuck vanilla names in America came from religious scripture but it’s like, come on guys. Show some creativity. At least mix it up a little bit.

So you aren’t surprised to find more than one kid in the home with a god-given name. One of the volunteers sheepishly informs you that it’s kind of policy to name foundlings who don’t already _have_ a name after the creator they most resemble.

You think it’s kind of cruel, doing that to a kid. Putting them in the literal shadow of immortal beings. It’d be like naming your kid Obama. Which you would never do. No sir. Not even hypothetically. You’ve never even thought about it, honest Karkat, cross your bleeding heart.

You don’t make a big deal about the whole affair. Just. Mingle. Chatting. Getting to know the kids. Their stories. If they remember any of it at all. You’ve already made up your mind to drop a big honkin’ donation on the place regardless of if you end up leaving here with a +1 to your little family. Post-scarcity means the place isn’t _bad_ by any stretch of the word, but you’re starting to think there’ll never be enough for the kids who have nothing.

Even in a fucking utopia people can be shitty. They can die before their time. Kids can be lost and never found.

You'd finished making your rounds when he comes in. An old as fuck grey cap pulled down over his face. He’s small and awkward in that way most kids are, with white-blonde hair sticking up from beneath that hat that tells you he’s definitely got a purer batch of Strilonde stock several hundreds of thousands of years back when you guys were swapping dna filled slime-juice to recreate humanity from eig--seven. Seven survivors. He’s carrying a plush pony in his arms, a bright pink bow around its neck and a matching pink heart scribbled onto it’s rump in what looks like marker, and when you stop to make small talk, sunset orange eyes stare warily up at you from beneath the rim of the cap.

You don’t skip a beat even if you have the fuckin’ _chills_ like you’re looking at a ghost. 

“Heya, my name’s Dave and this grump over here is Karkat, we’re kinda goin’ around and meetin’ all the kids and seein’ how ya’ll are doing? How do you like it there? Where’d you get this rad pony? I swear they were all the rage when I was a kid, brings back real memories. Do they have a name?” and the unasked question: _What’s yours?_

He glances between you, Karkat’s ever present scowl (although he noticeably softened it since talking to the kids which distracts you with all kinds of warm and fuzzies,) and the lime-blooded volunteer who’s been showing you around and introducing you and acting in general as a comforting presence to those who might otherwise be put off by a stranger in their midst, before making up his mind to speak.

“Dirk.” The answer to the unasked question comes out in a grunt and your heart not only skips a fucking beat it skips a whole on _century._ It’s policy, she said, and even if--even if the God of Heart never made it to Earth C you all sure as _hell_ made sure he was remembered.“Her name is Cadence. She’s not from a show. I made her. It’s alright here, I guess. People’re nice.”

I don’t know what you want. He seems to say, and pulls his hat down further.

I don’t know either. You don’t say back.

“Wow you made her???” You say instead, “That’s awesome! Where’d you get the idea???”

He shrugs, “I dream. A lot.”

“Sounds like you’re a creative little dude.”

Orange eyes pierce through you and then they look away and he shrugs uncomfortably. Clutching the plushie to his chest.

“He draws too, don’t you Dirk?” The limeblood--what was her name, Ferahn?--prompts, and the kid nods. She continues, “He’s very talented! There’s a lot of beautiful seaside imagery, as well as some lovely cityscapes--Would you like to share the one you showed me yesterday?”

At the prompting the kid ducks his head and vanishes into a room, and you finally feel your heart again. Thudding in your ears. Beating in time with a rhythm you’ve never been able to unhear. You don’t expect him to come back, and you apologize to Ferahn and ask her to pass it along for maybe unnerving him, but she just laughs, “Don’t worry. He loves showing off his art. He’ll be back.” 

He does. He returns, dropping the half a dozen notebooks on the table Ferahn led you too. You can feel that piercing stare drilling through your skull as you flip through page after page of desperate loneliness, translated into a distant horizon and a cloudless sky. Or shadowed alleyways and frighteningly familiar architecture that you _know_ has never been reproduced in Carapacian society.

Later, you’re staying up, far into the night, pouring over the files the group home gave you to help facilitate a potential decision, and Karkat comes to slam a mug of coffee down on the desk in front of you, almost splashing your keyboard and definitely splashing the page of one of the files you have spread across the surface.

“What the fuck was that for KK???”

“You know as well as I do which wriggler you are going to bring home. There’s no point in pussyfooting around it. Your face is such an open book I’m sure he felt betrayed the moment you didn’t immediately snatch him up and yell finders keepers at the top of your lungs.”

“I--” Fuck. “It’s--hell, Karkat, it’s _him._ There’s no doubt in my mind that’s _Dirk._ He had a sketchbook full of goddamn Derse and you’ve heard Roxy talk about where they grew up. But even if it IS Dirk is it even _fucking fair_ to do this? To him? To any of the other kids? We went into this wanting to give a kid a _better_ place, not force them into the shadow of a dude I barely met!”

“Good. Keep thinking that.” Karkat grunts and then slips an arm around your shoulders. His horns press against your head as he briefly leans in, “You wouldn’t be Dave Fucking Strider if you left him there, and you know it. You’re a bleeding blood-pusher. Just go ahead and do the fucking thing.”

“What if…” You whine. “What if he doesn’t want it? What if he just thinks of me as this weird creepy dude.”

“Then he’ll say _no_.”

“This is supposed to be a decision between the two of us about a kid we _both_ like and--”

“Jeegus Dave, STOP. LITERALLY JUST STOP THINKING.” You slam your jaw shut and actually do _stop_ , Karkat’s yell ringing in your ears because he’s literally right next to your face, “You’re going to give yourself a stroke. If _that’s_ what has you all tied up in a fucking knot let me dump some truth in your overactive thinkpan. I Am Here, Telling You. That I Agree. If that is Dirk Strider Reborn or what the fuck ever then we _owe_ him to at least do _something._ And if it’s not, then who better to help the poor sob who got saddled with _that_ much of a near perfect combination of yours and Lalonde’s ecto-juice to reverse engineer him, than _us?”_

_…_

You give up.

Head meet desk. Right on top of your papers. You see wary orange eyes in the back of your eyelids. You never saw Dirk’s eyes, except when the shades flew off his severed head. Your bro’s eyes. Wide and staring and dead.

You’re done.

“Alright. Fine.”

“What was that? You’re mumbling again.”

“You’re fucking _right,_ Vantas. I’ll submit the paperwork to get shit started but I swear to god he has to agree to it.”

It’ll be days. Maybe weeks, if anything you’ve read about New Houston’s foster care system is right. Oversight means red tape, even in an arguable utopia, but when you’d been talking to the admin staff they seemed optimistic that it would be a smooth process given your pre-screening went off without a hitch. You keep a decent place. Karkat has mellowed out a _little_ over the years. And there’s more than enough space here for a kid or three if you really wanted to go for it. Karkat’s a novelist and you--fuck, you don’t know. Sometimes an artist. sometimes a photographer, might as well be a trust fund baby because you don’t need to work because you’re a god and you’ve had many irons in the fires for years.

God, you need to talk to Kanaya. You _really_ need to talk to her. And decorate--maybe oran-- _no._

If Dirk comes home with you, you are going to fucking _let him choose_. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in like a haze today x3 I made it a series in case I get inspired to add more! This was written as a thank you to coolbrewed. Thank you so much for the support you've given me on my other fics <3


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